Severe Wealth Inequality Is Destroying The World's Great Cities

Last weekend we noted in, post about the galloping inequality inherent in urbanization that Richard Florida was warning that "Young, affluent, highly educated people have flowed back to downtown cores in cities like London, New York, San Francisco and Vancouver. Good jobs, better restaurants, higher tax revenues and even high-tech startups have followed. But this dramatic back-to-the-city movement also has its dark side, giving rise to what I call the new urban crisis, which registers itself in increasingly unaffordable housing and a growing divide between rich and poor." Since then, Florida was on NPR with Steve Innskeep (above), discussing his new book, The New Urban Crisis. He explained to the NPR listeners that "the middle-class neighborhoods, those platforms for the American dream, have been decimated" and that blue-collar service workers "are being pushed out of these metropolitan areas entirely." He blames Democratic politicians in the big cities and says flatly that they have "abandoned progressive policies" and he blames how power (and taxes) have flowed to the federal government and away from local governments.

We have to make a commitment to building affordable housing because what's getting built in New York and in Los Angeles and San Francisco and what is causing the backlash is luxury towers and luxury lofts for the wealthy. Number two, we've got to build more transit. We've got to build transit that connects parts of our cities and parts of our communities-- and actually those lagging areas-- that connects them to employment centers near the urban core, which is where the best jobs are being created. But the third thing we have to do that's absolutely critical and that very few people are talking about-- we have nearly 70 million jobs now in the blue-collar service economy-- food preparation, food service, office work, personal care services-- the fastest growing jobs in our country.

So I talk in the book about the need to massively increase the minimum wage to take into account the cost of living. So that minimum wage would be higher in New York and San Francisco than it would be in Buffalo or Pittsburgh, of course. As a country, we really spend time and money making manufacturing jobs good jobs. We increase the wages so that people who work in factories could buy the cars and consumer durables coming off the assembly lines. The only way we're going to build a middle class today is to make sure the service workers-- 70 million strong, more than roughly half of our workforce-- that they have jobs that are middle class jobs. And right now, they're sinking further and further behind.

...I had hoped that our federal government would lead here. But now with the Trump election and Republicans in control of both houses, that's impossible. So I think the default for the United States is this progressive group of cities and mayors and urban leaders and philanthropy. And let's hope progressive businesses-- the tech companies, the knowledge companies, progressive real estate developers-- will get on board with this because we are in such deep trouble with this overblown nation-state and really out of sync with the times. Dysfunctional, imperial presidency-- we see that with Trump in office, but it's been there all along. I really do see cities and local empowerment as probably the only way out of this new urban crisis.

There's an excerpt from his book in the new issue of The Atlantic, The Roots of the New Uran Crisis. In his 2002 book, The Rise of the Creative Class, he laid out the basis for urban success-- attracting and retaining talent, not just companies. "The knowledge workers, techies, and artists and other cultural creatives who made up the creative class were locating in places that had lots of high-paying jobs-- or a thick labor market. They also had what I called a thick mating market-- other people to meet and date-- and a vibrant quality of place, with great restaurants and cafés, a music scene, and an abundance of things to do."

In time, my work generated a considerable following among mayors, arts and cultural leaders, urbanists, and even some enlightened real estate developers who were looking for a better way to spur urban development in their communities. But my message also generated a backlash on both sides of the ideological spectrum. Some conservatives questioned the connection I drew between diversity and urban economic growth, countering that it was companies and jobs, not the creative class, that moved the economy forward. Others, mainly on the left, blamed the creative class and me personally for everything from rising rents and gentrification to the growing gap between the rich and the poor. Although some of the more personal attacks stung, this criticism provoked my thinking in ways I could never have anticipated, causing me to reframe my ideas about cities and the forces that act on them.

Slowly but surely, my understanding of cities started to evolve. I realized I had been overly optimistic to believe that cities and the creative class could, by themselves, bring forth a better and more inclusive kind of urbanism. Even before the economic crisis of 2008, the gap between rich and poor was surging in the cities that were experiencing the greatest revivals. As techies, professionals, and the rich flowed back into urban cores, the less advantaged members of the working and service classes, as well as some artists and musicians, were being priced out. In New York’s SoHo, the artistic and creative ferment I had observed as a student was giving way to a new kind of homogeneity of wealthy people, high-end restaurants, and luxury shops.

I entered into a period of rethinking and introspection, of personal and intellectual transformation. I began to see the back-to-the-city movement as something that conferred a disproportionate share of its benefits on a small group of places and people. I found myself confronting the dark side of the urban revival I had once championed and celebrated.

As I pored over the data, I could see that only a limited number of cities and metro areas, maybe a couple of dozen, were really making it in the knowledge economy; many more were failing to keep pace or falling further behind. Tens of millions of Americans remain locked in persistent poverty. And virtually all our cities suffer from growing economic divides. As the middle class and its neighborhoods fade, our geography is splintering into small areas of affluence and concentrated advantage, and much larger areas of poverty and concentrated disadvantage.

It became increasingly clear to me that the same clustering of talent and economic assets generates a lopsided, unequal urbanism in which a relative handful of superstar cities, and a few elite neighborhoods within them, benefit while many other places stagnate or fall behind. Ultimately, the very same force that drives the growth of our cities and economy broadly also generates the divides that separate us and the contradictions that hold us back.

My perspective on cities and urbanism was also deeply affected by what I saw happening in my adopted hometown of Toronto. I had moved there in 2007 to head up a new institute on urban prosperity at the University of Toronto. For me, the city was a bastion of the very best of progressive urbanism. Toronto had as diverse a population as can be found anywhere in North America; a thriving economy that was barely dented by the economic crisis of 2008; safe streets, great public schools, and a cohesive social fabric. Yet, somehow, this progressive, diverse city chose Rob Ford as its mayor.

While his personal foibles and dysfunctions may have endeared him to his Ford Nation of supporters, he was, to me, perhaps the most anti-urban mayor ever to preside over a major city. Once elected, Ford went about tearing down just about everything that urbanists believe make for great cities. He ripped out bike lanes, and developed plans to turn a prime stretch of the city’s downtown lakefront into a garish mall, complete with a giant Ferris wheel.

Ford’s rise was the product of the city’s burgeoning class divide. As Toronto’s once sizable middle class declined and its old middle-class neighborhoods faded, the city was splitting into a small set of affluent, educated areas packed in and around the urban core and along the major subway and transit lines and a much larger expanse of disadvantaged neighborhoods located far from the city center and transit. Ford’s message resonated powerfully with his constituency of working people and new immigrants, who felt that the benefits of the city’s revitalization were being captured by a downtown elite and passing them by.

I came to see this mounting class divide as a ticking time bomb. If a city as progressive, diverse, and prosperous as Toronto could fall prey to such a populist backlash, then it could happen anywhere.

At the time, I said Ford was just the first signal of this brewing backlash: more and worse would follow. It did. In short order came England’s stunning and wholly unexpected decision to leave the European Union with the Brexit. Vehemently opposed by affluent, cosmopolitan London, it was backed by the struggling residents of working-class cities, suburbs, and rural areas who were being left behind by the twin forces of globalization and re-urbanization.

But what came next was even more unanticipated-- and even more frightening: the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the most powerful country on the planet. Trump rose to power by mobilizing anxious, angry voters in the left-behind places of America. Hillary Clinton took the dense, affluent, knowledge- based cities and close-in suburbs that are the epicenters of the new economy, winning the popular vote by a substantial margin. But Trump took everywhere else-- the farther-out exurbs and rural areas-- which provided his decisive victory in the Electoral College. All three-- Trump, Ford, and Brexit—reflect the deepening fault lines of class and location that define and divide us today.

These political cleavages ultimately stem from the far deeper economic and geographic structures of the New Urban Crisis. They are the product of our new age of winner-take-all urbanism, in which the talented and the advantaged cluster and colonize a small, select group of superstar cities, leaving everybody and everywhere else behind. Much more than a crisis of cities, the New Urban Crisis is the central crisis of our time.

The stakes could not be higher. How we come to grips with the New Urban Crisis will determine whether we become more divided and slide backward into economic stagnation, or forge ahead to a new era of more sustainable and inclusive prosperity.

Unforeseen Consequences Of Social And Economic Dysfunction In 2016

Richard Florida writes about social and economic theories in the context of a changing urban environment. He teaches at the University of Toronto and his best known books are The Rise of the Creative Class, Cities and the Creative Class and The Flight of the Creative Class, which make the case that the accellorated economic development in urban areas is attributable to an open, accepting and dynamic environment because of what he calls "high bohemians" or the "creative class"-- artists, musicians, gays, technology nerds. Although some critics dismiss his work as elitist, he's on to something very real, if not always very appetizing.

Yesterday I noticed that Chris Cillizza's Washington Post column, 2016: The Race To The Bottom Election elicited a Twitter Storm from Florida. Cillizza's piece was inspired by a memo from a White House aide, Doug Sosnik, analyzing the context of the 2016 races.

"In this period of profound alienation, with both parties engaging in harsh ideological primaries, the public is likely to view the entire political process as a race to the bottom. They will be inclined to view their choice for president through the prism of which candidate is the least flawed and poses the least threat to their future well-being... The country is undergoing the most significant economic, technological, and demographic changes since the Industrial Revolution. Such change in any one of these areas would test our ability to adapt. But the fact that we are experiencing all of these shifts at the same time has exacerbated Americans’ fears and fundamental distrust of those in power. The public has concluded that our 20th century institutions are incapable of dealing with 21st century challenges."

Cillizza contends that Herr Trumpf's "entire candidacy, in fact, is illustrative of Sosnik's point: The real estate mogul is presenting a sort of dystopian view of America-- things are bad and not getting better-- and casting himself as the lone, last chance the country has to turn itself around. In normal times, that would be the kiss of death. In this race, it has been a rocket that Trump has ridden to the top of the polls."

What caught Florida's attention was this line: "The public has concluded that our 20th century institutions are incapable of dealing with 21st century challenges." Right up his alley! He tweets that "The basic thesis [of Cillizza's story] is that the election is occurring at a time of epochal economic, demographic & social change."

And then his own response:

He points to former crackpot (and crack head) Toronto Mayor Rob Ford as the precursor to Trumpism and asserts that as the profound social and economic changes kick in the "dealignment phase is volatile, unpredictable & dangerous. Odd things (like the rise of Rob Ford) can happen." And Herr Trumpf.

He seems somewhat optimist because "America has always led the world in finding ways to realign its political structures in ways that leverage big economic transformations" but warns that this elect is part of a "test of whether it can do so again" and writes it'll "require a progressive, inclusive vision of a post-industrial knowledge economy where everyone is included & rewarded. To get beyond Trumpism require[s] a vision of a post-industrial society which goes beyond just crass materialism. To my mind, such a progressive agenda turns on the recognition that every single human being is creative. And that developing economic & social structure to harness the full creativity of each is the key to creating real meaning & purpose."

He went on to say that he feels "the party structures block" meaningful participation from those quarters-- think Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, Steve Israel, Rahm Emanuel, Chris Van Hollen, Steny Hoyer as examples of Democrats in party leadership roles... not exactly revolutionaries. "Some would say," he tweeted, "major investors in both parties have blocked this shift. In doing so, they have opened pandora's box" and acknowledges that "Mainstream media bares some of the blame-- reality TV, focus on 'crazy' people ... Helped create lane for Trump."

Five hours later he was suggesting people read a new article, Rise of the Renters , for The Atlantic, which points out that the "share of U.S. households that rent increased from 36% in 2006 to 41.1% in 2014, that the "share of renters among Millenialls 18-34 yr olds rose 7.6%, from 62.5% to 71.6% [and that] renter share of 26-34 yr olds rose 10.9% and warned ominously about a housing cost squeeze: "rents increased by 22.3% between 2006 to 2014, while average incomes declined by 5.8%. Income devoted to rent by the lowest income households increased from 55.7% in 2006 to a staggering 62.5% in 2014."

Before we get to The Jam, let me end with one little tiny thing, namely that the world's most famous economist-- sorry Krugman-- says Bernie could change the face of the country. That's certainly his intention, of course, but Thomas Piketty is impressed with his rise.

From the 1930s until the 1970s, the US were at the forefront of an ambitious set of policies aiming to reduce social inequalities. Partly to avoid any resemblance with Old Europe, seen then as extremely unequal and contrary to the American democratic spirit, in the inter-war years the country invented a highly progressive income and estate tax and set up levels of fiscal progressiveness never used on our side of the Atlantic. From 1930 to 1980-- for half a century-- the rate for the highest US income (over $1m per year) was on average 82%, with peaks of 91% from the 1940s to 1960s (from Roosevelt to Kennedy), and still as high as 70% during Reagan’s election in 1980.

This policy in no way affected the strong growth of the post-war American economy, doubtless because there is not much point in paying super-managers $10m when $1m will do. The estate tax, which was equally progressive with rates applicable to the largest fortunes in the range of 70% to 80% for decades... [T]he US also set up a federal minimum wage. In the late 1960s it was worth $10 an hour (in 2016 dollars), by far the highest of its time.

All this was carried through almost without unemployment, since both the level of productivity and the education system allowed it. This is also the time when the US finally put an end to the undemocratic legal racial discrimination still in place in the south, and launched new social policies.

All this change sparked a muscular opposition, particularly among the financial elites and the reactionary fringe of the white electorate. Humiliated in Vietnam, 1970s America was further concerned that the losers of the second world war (Germany and Japan in the lead) were catching up at top speed. The US also suffered from the oil crisis, inflation and under-indexation of tax schedules. Surfing the waves of all these frustrations, Reagan was elected in 1980 on a program aiming to restore a mythical capitalism said to have existed in the past.

The culmination of this new program was the tax reform of 1986, which ended half a century of a progressive tax system and lowered the rate applicable to the highest incomes to 28%.

Democrats never truly challenged this choice in the Clinton (1992-2000) and Obama (2008-2016) years, which stabilized the taxation rate at around 40% (two times lower than the average level for the period 1930 to 1980). This triggered an explosion of inequality coupled with incredibly high salaries for those who could get them, as well as a stagnation of revenues for most of America-- all of which was accompanied by low growth (at a level still somewhat higher than Europe, mind you, as the old world was mired in other problems).

Reagan also decided to freeze the federal minimum wage level, which from 1980 was slowly but surely eroded by inflation (little more than $7 an hour in 2016, against nearly $11 in 1969). Again, this new political-ideological regime was barely mitigated by the Clinton and Obama years.

Sanders’ success today shows that much of America is tired of rising inequality and these so-called political changes, and intends to revive both a progressive agenda and the American tradition of egalitarianism. Hillary Clinton, who fought to the left of Barack Obama in 2008 on topics such as health insurance, appears today as if she is defending the status quo, just another heiress of the Reagan-Clinton-Obama political regime.

Sanders makes clear he wants to restore progressive taxation and a higher minimum wage ($15 an hour). To this he adds free healthcare and higher education in a country where inequality in access to education has reached unprecedented heights, highlighting a gulf standing between the lives of most Americans, and the soothing meritocratic speeches pronounced by the winners of the system.

Meanwhile, the Republican party sinks into a hyper-nationalist, anti-immigrant and anti-Islam discourse (even though Islam isn’t a great religious force in the country), and a limitless glorification of the fortune amassed by rich white people. The judges appointed under Reagan and Bush have lifted any legal limitation on the influence of private money in politics, which greatly complicates the task of candidates like Sanders.

However, new forms of political mobilization and crowdfunding can prevail and push America into a new political cycle. We are far from gloomy prophecies about the end of history.

Rob Ford-- Four More Years?

When Richard Nixon was narrowly elected president in 1968-- beating war-tainted Herbert Humphrey by seven tenths of a percentage point, 43.4 to 42.7%-- I decided to move to another country. I travelled around the world and finally settled down in Amsterdam. By the summer of 1972 it was obvious to me that Nixon couldn't possibly win another term and I started thinking about moving back to America. When the votes were counted on November, Nixon-- who we later found out stole the election through a criminal fraud that later forced him to resign in disgrace-- had 47,168,710 votes (60.1%) to George McGovern's 29,173,222 (37.5%), a rout. Nixon won every state but Massachusetts (and DC). By the time he resigned on August 9, 1974, I wasn't that eager to return to the country that had reelected him so overwhelmingly.

Nixon? How could anyone vote for that cesspool to begin with-- let alone after 4 years confirmed everyone's worst fears about him. Apparently not quite everyone's. A couple decades later I was living in the U.S. and it happened all over again. Canadians may have been looking on in horror and wondering how America could reelect George W. Bush… but they did. Really-- and he beat John Kerry 62,040,610 (50.7%) to 59,028,444 (48.3%). Well, the shoe is on the other foot finally, Canada. We may have reelected a collection of bizarre political characters and criminals like Jesse Helms (NC), David "Diapers" Vitter (LA), Mark Sanford (SC) and, just 2 weeks ago, Scott DesJarlais (TN) but most of the jokesters are from the backward parts of the Old Confederacy where people are expected to be especially dumb. Canada may be about to reelect Rob Ford in Toronto, their 3rd smartest city (behind Vancouver and Montreal).

Rob Ford’s support appears to be rising as the gap between him and frontrunner John Tory narrows with two months left in Toronto’s mayoral race, according to a new poll.

The Forum Research opinion survey also found that Olivia Chow’s momentum continues to slip.

The poll, which was conducted on Monday and Tuesday, put support for Mr. Tory at 34 per cent, 31 per cent for Mr. Ford and 23 per cent for Ms. Chow – the three leading candidates.

...The poll suggests Mr. Ford is enjoying support levels not seen since March.

In addition to his rising popularity, fewer poll respondents want Mr. Ford to step down than did in previous Forum Research surveys. Half of Toronto voters said they want the mayor to resign, down from 58 per cent two weeks ago and 63 per cent in early June.

The poll found that Mr. Ford’s support was highest among men, those aged 18-34, residents of Etobicoke and Scarborough, people with a household income between $60,000 and $80,000 and those with a high school education or less.

By contrast, support for Mr. Tory was highest among senior citizens, North York residents, voters with household incomes over $250,000 and those who have gone to graduate school. His support is almost evenly split between men and women.

Right Wing Crack Addicts Trey Radel And Rob Ford Believe They're Above The Law

Right wing slobs Rob Ford and Trey Radel

Manmohan Singh has been Prime Minister of India for a decade. This morning, he announced he would not run again in order to make way for young blood. I understand the feeling and it was certainly the way I felt when I decided to leave Warner Bros. The only way for people to move up is for people at the top to move on. Singh is backing Rahul Gandhi (age 43, son of Rajiv Gandhi) for the job. There is fear in India that the far right has a chance of taking over with neo-fascist bigot Narendra Modi becoming the next Prime Minister. Modi is comparable to Ted Cruz, maybe worse.

You probably read already that delusional Republican Party crack addict Trey Radel, a former Hate Talk Radio host from Fort Myers, Florida, is running for Congress again. It was widely assumed he would have a strong primary challenge, and Florida Governor Rick Scott has asked him to resign, as has the Florida Republican Party. That he'll have a primary is no longer an assumption. With his phony-baloney "rehab" ending just in time for the congressional session starting up again Tuesday, he's already drawn one heavily financed challenger. The so-called Values are Vital PAC has two donors-- Ronald Firman, who ponied up $525,000, and Las Vegas lawyer Martin Burns, who contributed $485,000. They're backing ex-state Rep. Paige Kreegel, who Radel beat in the 2012 primary. Paige is a male. So is Connie Mack, the former congressman from the district who left the job to run a disastrous Senate race against Bill Nelson. Connie Mack will probably run again this year too, in which case he would be the heavy favorite.

Even more bizarre is sometimes snowbird and all-the-time crackhead Rob Ford, another far right kook, this one mayor of Toronto. He filed for reelection Thursday. There are no reports that he was in a drunken and/or coked-up stupor when he showed up at City Hall and filed. Calling himself "the best mayor this city has ever had," he also promised "Ford more years." Progressives are backing MP Olivia Chow. Bizarrely, polling shows Ford with stable approval numbers just north of 40%. (Chow's numbers, though, approach 60%.)

What’s represented in the chart below is the percentage of people who have heard of the individual candidate who would vote for him or her. If all candidates were equally known, this would add up to 100 per cent. However, since name recognition is unequal, and that’s what we’re correcting for, it makes the totals in the below charts are greater than 100.) On November 14 Ipsos released a poll in which they asked people who they would vote for if the election were held tomorrow, and also measured how familiar people were with each candidate. If we run the numbers, we wind up with this:

Right-Wing Mayor Rob Ford Isn't Just A Hopeless And Delusional Drug Addict Of The Steve Stockman Variety

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It's a shame that most media covers Toronto Mayor as a clownish crackhead instead of what he actually is-- Canada's most prominent right-wing politician… and a clownish crackhead. Chris Christie is basically one crackpipe incident from being America's Rob Ford.

The rest of Canada's right-wing politicians are afraid of being tarnished by Ford's outrageous behavior, though not by his vehemently anti-family agenda. Today, when he finally admitted he had used crack-- after denying it for months and months-- he denied lying and just said to reporters "You didn't ask the correct questions." As of publication time, Ford still hasn't been taken into custody. He also says he has no reason to resign.

I just watched his re-elect speech! I live-tweeted it:

Inside the private Tory caucus room on the third floor of the legislature, Ford celebrated the victory of his loyal political lieutenant and longtime deputy mayor, Doug Holyday: By joining forces, the pair enabled the provincial Tories to claim their first Toronto election victory in 14 years.

At the campaign launch, Ford had warmly endorsed Holyday alongside PC Leader Tim Hudak; at an all-candidates' debate, Holyday gave him a grateful shout-out; and with the byelection triumph Ford swung by to give his blessings. So when Holyday was sworn in as the new MPP for Etobicoke-Lakeshore, Ford was the centre of attention at a reception inside the sanctum sanctorum of the Progressive Conservatives.

A polarizing force at city hall, Ford has cast a long shadow over Queen's Park since becoming mayor in 2010. That's because all politics is local-- especially provincial politics.

The opposition Tories embraced Ford as a godsend, a harbinger of a hard-right wave that could sweep Hudak to power by making inroads in Liberal-friendly Toronto.

The governing Liberals tiptoed around him, wary of a populist streak that could wreak havoc with their centrist, consensus-oriented premiers-- first Dalton McGuinty and then Kathleen Wynne.

Across the political divide, Ford was either revered as a demigod or reviled as a demagogue.

Hudak cozied up to Ford conspicuously, attending the mayor's annual barbeque in Etobicoke (though he missed the last one). Quite apart from their personal bond, however, Hudak has consciously appropriated Ford's political vision and vocabulary.

He spouts the same "gravy train" slogan made famous by Ford. And he has embraced the mayor's aversion to LRTs, insisting subways are the only form of mass transit worthy of a big city.

But the Tory leader isn't the only politician to fall under Ford's sway. McGuinty also acquiesced to the mayor's muddled thinking on subways by agreeing to bury, belatedly, the entire crosstown Eglinton LRT (until he and city council subsequently came to their senses). Wynne also buckled, opportunistically, to Ford's anti-LRT mindset by opting for a subway through low-density Scarborough.

For the Tories, the optics and politics of their close association with Ford will be hard to live down. When police chief Bill Blair confirmed that an incriminating video was in hand last Thursday, the Tories swiftly shifted into damage control:

As reporters sought comment from the normally voluble Holyday, Hudak's press aides literally tugged at the rookie MPP to leave, cutting off further questions. Again on Monday, when Holyday wandered over to chat, Tory communications aides scurried over to run interference-- until the MPP reassured them he was making small talk with me about a recent pickup hockey game.

Tory strategists say their current hypersensitivity is understandable. Many MPPs are mortified by the mayor's behaviour and want Hudak to keep his distance. Ford on his way up was assumed to be a net positive for the party; but a big city mayor on his way down is seen as a potential drag on Hudak.

The mayor's maverick brother, Doug, could also cause trouble for the Tories. He keeps musing publicly about running in the next provincial election in Etobicoke North-- a prospect Hudak has publicly welcomed but privately dreads. The mayor, however, is relishing his brother's provincial ambitions:

"Doug will be provincial, he will be premier one day," Ford boasted to a radio host Monday.

Realistically, the Ford factor may yet fizzle out by the time of the next election, just as it waned before the last one in 2011. After all, the Liberals' Fortress Toronto did not fall to Ford Nation two years ago.

So is Ford Nation an exaggeration? It would be a mistake to understate the impact of the Ford brothers, for they have coarsened our political discourse. Skewed policymaking and populist rhetoric will be their enduring legacy at Queen's Park, long after the Fords lose their grip at city hall.

Apparently two more Rob Ford videos are now in police custody and they are "bombshells," though not necessarily relevant to his crack cocaine addiction per se. There's stuff about rampant criminal activities and all the usual sick conservative obsessions with homophobia and racism. It all harkens back to Ford's Mussolini-like mayoral campaign. His right-wing populism and clownishness made him a hero among lo-info voters who distrust government and distrust elites. His blatant corruption is typical of conservative politicians in the U.S. but way beyond the pale for Canadians… and difficult for many Canadians to come to terms with.

Ford has taunted the police to arrest him and says he's not resigning. On Kiss 92.5FM he said, "If I did something illegal, then arrest me. Obviously I haven’t." It's just a matter of time before the police do release the video and do arrest Ford, hopefully this evening. I'm not sure why it's taking so long. Politicians always get special treatment, especially white ones.

Rob Ford: Chris Christie/Steve Stockman Meets Benito Mussolini

Rob Ford, The Canadian Chris Christie

Rob Ford is certainly a "fat fuck," but-- much worse-- he's a disgusting bigot, a thug and a quintessential conservative. But what's interesting about the "fat fuck" episode (just before the 3 minute mark on the video above) is that the reporter didn't call Ford a "fat fuck." It was the goon bodyguard who came up with the accusation that the reporter called him a "fat fuck" to change the subject and rattle the reporter. He and Ford then went on the attack, like two vicious overtly threatening hoodlums, chasing the reporter out of the room and ending the embarrassing interview. Watch Ford in action. It was the pathological behavior shown on this clip, rather than his obesity, that has caused people to call him the Chris Christie of Canada.

Watching his loutish, thuggish behavior, makes it hard to believe Ford was born into great wealth and to a politician dad to boot. Daddy tried to buy him a spot on a football team-- and Ford did get on his college squad, where he warmed the bench for the whole time he was on the team... and then dropping out when he realized he would never play a game. He also never got a college degree. He's also never had a real job in his life, having "worked" for the family firm until he started running for office, as an American style right-wing extremist and overt racist, over a dozen years ago. When called out for an anti-Italian racist comment, Ford shrugged it off: "I'm a conservative and the majority of people are left-wing and cannot stand my politics."

Ford is, needless to say, a virulently anti-gay bigot-- so much so that one has to wonder why he's so obsessed with homosexuality... and when he might be caught trying to have sex with an underage boy.

He managed to slip into Toronto's mayoralty in 2010 because it was a three-way race. He won 47% of the vote. He's the most corrupt mayor in recorded history and was found guilty of conflicts of interest and enough related crap to have a judge declare the mayor's seat empty. He's appealing and is allowed to keep the seat while the appeal works its way through the courts. But that isn't why he turned to drugs. He's been a drug abuser (as well as a belligerent alcoholic) for many years and, in fact, was arrested for driving under the influence of drugs in Miami. The Florida police who pulled him over found marijuana and he was convicted of possession, something he denied while running for mayor. Being a conservative, lying comes very naturally to Ford, not just when there are court records of drug possession, but even when he denied being at a hockey game, getting drunk and abusing people and being kicked out of the stadium by the police-- with hundreds of witnesses. When he says something-- anything-- he's as likely to be lying as telling the truth. And almost no one believes his current denials about having smoked crack. Last March, when he groped Sarah Thomson, a former mayoral candidate and publisher of the Women's Post. Thomson said he was either on coke or something like it, describing him as "talking quickly, out of it, arrogant... he was definitely out of it.”

And then the biggest scandal broke-- Ford palling around with some Somali drug dealers and smoking crack... which wound up on a cellphone video.

It appears to show Ford in a room, sitting in a chair, wearing a white shirt, top buttons open, inhaling from what appears to be a glass crack pipe. Ford is incoherent, trading jibes with an off-camera speaker who goads the clearly impaired mayor by raising topics including Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau and the Don Bosco high school football team Ford coaches.

“I’m fucking right-wing,” Ford appears to mutter at one point. “Everyone expects me to be right-wing. I’m just supposed to be this great.…” and his voice trails off. At another point he is heard calling Trudeau a “fag.” Later in the 90-second video he is asked about the football team and he appears to say (though he is mumbling), “they are just fucking minorities.”

And now the cover-up, which seems to include the murder of one of the men trying to peddle the video-- has Ford's staffers resigning and running for their lives. All this promoted the national broadcasting company, the CBC, to publish a story yesterday about the outstanding questions in this case:

Where is the video?

For all the controversy that has been swirling, one crucial question remains: Where is the video?

The Star and Gawker have stood by their reports about the video. Ford has said it doesn't exist.

The Star's Doolittle has said she and Donovan were told there was more than one copy of the video. Gawker has said it has raised the $200,000 asking price, through crowd-sourcing, but has not been able to make contact with those who have the alleged video. It said Tuesday that it will give the sellers about a month to respond before it decides what else to do with the money; donating it to charities was the alternative.

According to published reports on May 28, someone on Ford's staff was told days ago about the potential location of the video, and passed that information along to police.

Has Rob Ford ever smoked crack cocaine?

Ford said on May 17 that he does not "use crack cocaine” and that he is not a crack cocaine addict. Questions remain as to whether he has used drugs in the past. Ford has yet to provide additional clarification.

What is the connection to Anthony Smith?

The people shopping the alleged Ford video would not provide a screen grab of what they had. But the alleged go-between did give the Toronto Star and Gawker a photo of the mayor with his arm around someone said to be Anthony Smith, a 21-year-old who was shot and killed outside a downtown nightclub in March.

CBC News has spoken to people who know the men in the picture, and confirmed they believe that the men in the photo are Smith and Muhammad Khattak, who was injured in that same shooting and whose face was pixellated in the original photo.

The mayor, who has a practice of coaching and working with young people, has simply said he gets his picture taken with many people.

The Toronto Star is now suggesting the cellphone with the alleged video may have belonged to Smith. Police haven't confirmed that is the case.

It's hard to imagine a nice city like Toronto could have ever elected a sociopath like Ford-- even if more people did vote against him than for him. The latest polling, though, shows him supremely unpopular and likely to be beaten by his old adversary Olivia Chow, currently clobbering him 56-36%. And that was even before this morning's new broke that he admits to knowing where the crack video is!

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford told senior aides not to worry about a video appearing to show him smoking crack cocaine because he knew where it was, sources told the Star.

Ford then blurted out the address of two 17th-floor units-- 1701 and 1703-- at a Dixon Rd. apartment complex, to the shock of staffers at a city hall meeting almost two weeks ago, the sources said.

The mayor cited “our contacts” as the source of his information, according to insiders familiar with the unusual May 17 session in his office.

Staffers were alarmed by the implication of hearing so precise a location, sources said.

Now, I hope no one misinterpreted what I said about conservatives to mean that all conservatives smoke crack. That's crazy! I just meant that all conservatives are liars and sociopaths and corrupt. That's all.

UPDATE: Has Ford's Whole Staff Walked Out On Him?

These crazy conservatives! Now the Star is reporting that two more staffers have resigned as of today-- so five so far this week. One was his executive assistant, Kia Nejatian, which probably means he might as well resign now and save Toronto any further agony over his mayoralty. Ford's brother, Doug, who has been an adjunct of his career, is now being shunned by Ontario Conservatives, who are hoping he disappears along with big brother asap. They used to call him a superstar... but that was almost a whole month ago. The Conservative leader in the provincial legislature, Jim Wilson, said that Doug Ford "is not our candidate. I don’t even know the guy... personally I’ve never even met him." Cold!